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Last weekend was our first wedding anniversary, and my diet suffered a little bit as a result. I won’t go into the details, but it was pretty ugly.

Yesterday, I got back on track with a 1,300 calorie day featuring a light lunch and a pretty normal pasta dinner. Lunches have definitely been the best part of my diet so far. Lately, I’ve been having these Asian soup bowls from Trader Joe’s. Originally, I was sticking to the $2 Trader Joe’s soup bowls, but the $1 soups are pretty tasty too! I thought that they were generic, American noodle soups, but it turns out that they’re imported from Thailand and have THREE packets of goodness that you get to add to your soup. In my opinion, it’s usually a good sign when your instant noodles come with multiple packets. When the directions say, “Empty contents of seasoning, vegetable, and oil packets into the bowl” – you’re in business!!!

Not only are these instant soups delicious and low in calories, but they go really well with the Japanese Sencha that I’m usually drinking in the afternoons. A little Sriracha hot sauce and soy sauce doesn’t hurt either. 😉

I’m going to keep this short, because my head is throbbing. I wouldn’t even be writing this if I didn’t have a couple pictures to share with you.

Anyway, I was off to a good start on my diet yesterday with lunch. Trader Joe’s makes these great little soup bowls that you just add water to, so I was able to enjoy (Japanese) Miso soup with my Japanese Sencha.

This soup is a heck of a deal for $2, and a great lunch at only 220 calories!

Anyway, that’s the last meal that I remember eating yesterday. Lisa says I ate 5 taquitos and 2 mini pizzas putting me at a grand total of 2190 calories for the day – A DIET FAIL. The reason for this is that I got black out drunk last night! I don’t remember ANYTHING, so sorry to anyone I’ve offended! – I know there were a few last night. 😦 @Peter @thepurrfectcup @teashowlisa

I blame the shot glass I was using for this particular mishap. I was keeping track of all my shots (for diet purposes), and I had 8 – which usually isn’t black out territory for me? This morning (afternoon), I think I got to the bottom of this mystery. THE SHOT GLASS IS HUGE! I was only filling it to the first line on the bottom of the glass, but I should have been able to tell that even that wasn’t the standard jigger size. Plan on picking up a traditional shot glass soon. Sorry folks!

It finally happened. We’ve polished off all of our Assam, and the Sencha is running thin too. It’s time to make a substantial tea order.

As far as the Sencha goes, we’ll probably just get a kilo of Upton’s Japanese Sencha. This is because the price is right and shipping is within the US. Also, it’s of sufficient quality for what we’re doing with it – which is making Sencha ice cubes and drinking Iced Sencha all day.

Now, when it comes to picking a black tea, things get much trickier. We’d like a kilo of Darjeeling this time around, but we can’t decide which one! @peter suggested Lochan Tea Limited a few weeks ago, and we were just browsing their site today. We only found two teas that are within our price range, and (having never tried either one of them) we were wondering if they are decent teas for the price.

Please comment below if you’ve ever tried either of these or know anything about them. Also, if you’ve ever ordered from Lochan, because we were having a hard time figuring out how shipping works and how much it costs.

The other option for us is to just order the Darjeeling from Upton Tea Imports with the Sencha, because their shipping is always $4.20 within the US. However, when you search Upton’s website for Darjeeling, over 60 different teas come up and four of them are within our price range (none of them we’ve ever tried before).

Please comment below if you’ve tried any of these Darjeeling from Upton or Lochan. Also, let us know if there’s any other Darjeelings that you can recommend for $50 or less per kilo including shipping. We’re really having trouble making a decision here and could use some advice!

The big, round ice cube tray was a gift from a member of a country club where I used to tend bar. He used to bring his own, personal thermos full of round ice cubes to cocktail hour for his Chivas on the rocks. He specified that we put only one, single, round ice cube in a rocks glass and pour the Chivas over it. Once, I asked him about it, and he explained that it was a superior design. The larger, denser ice cube melted slower; therefore, not watering down his drink as badly. Also, the single, round cube made it easier to drink. He went on to say that fancy bars in Japan and China would use some kind of device to apply heat and pressure to similar round cubes, and that doing so would make them perfectly round, seamless, and crystal clear. So clear, that when added to a drink, it looked as if there was no ice at all!